These are the foods a doctor buys — and avoids — at the grocery store

Ever wonder how your doctor shops for nutritious food?Whole Foods/Facebook
Your doctor has probably told you to avoid certain foods and eat more of others. But do you ever wish you could just tag along on her next trip to the grocery store to see how she shops for nutritious food?

Roxane B. Sukol, a preventive medicine specialist and the medical director of the Cleveland Clinic's Wellness Enterprise, takes Ruhlman through the aisles of her local grocery store to point out which foods she picks, which products she avoids, and which sections she spends the most time in at the market.

Next stop: The make-your-own nut butter section

Sukol said she buys a lot of freshly-made peanut butter because its ingredients are so simple — just peanuts.

Unfortunately, make-your-own-peanut-butter is often pretty pricey: around $7 per pound, so registered dietitian and nutritionist Andy Bellatti advises simply buying pre-made nut butter (a 16-oz container of Smucker's Chunky Peanut Butter retails for around $3 at Walmart) that only lists two ingredients on the nutrition label.

"If the only ingredients are nuts and salt, just natural nut butter, that totally works," Bellatti told Business Insider. It's going to have your protein, healthy fats, and vitamin E."

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On the way to the dairy section, but first, a quick break for dessert

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In a special section at Heinen's on the way to the dairy section, Sukol paused at a snack section and picked up a lemon tart. After reading the ingredients, she said, "It's expensive, but it's food."

While juice has some vitamins and in some cases even a small amount of protein, research shows that the best way to get those nutrients is to eat them. Since juicing fruit removes most of its fiber, it doesn't keep you as full as a whole orange or apple might. A 12-ounce glass of orange juice, for example, has almost the same calorie content as a can of soda, close to the same amount of sugar and carbohydrates as a bag of M&Ms, and virtually no fiber.

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Skip: The granola bar section

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"Granola bars are just candy," Sukol said. "They've got so much sugar in them."

She's right. Granola can pack anywhere between six and 16 grams of sugar per serving, while energy bars can have anywhere from 9 to 23 grams.

Next stop: The dairy section

Skip: The cereal isle

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Like granola bars, many cereals are high in sugar. They also tend to be low in the fiber that keeps you feeling full because they rely on refined carbohydrates, or as Sukol calls them, "stripped carbs."

These are essentially whole grains that have had their most nutritious components, such as their germ and bran, removed. In the body, these stripped, or simple, carbs are converted quickly to sugar.

Last stop: The butcher's case

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According to Sukol, there are three kinds of fats: good fats, like the healthy fats found in fish, avocado, and olive oil; bad fats, like the kind found in processed foods like margarine and corn oil; and "fats that are in between."

In this category, she includes fats from beef and lamb. For those types of fats, Sukol said there simply isn't enough evidence to suggest on the whole that they're good for us or bad for us. In the meantime, she recommends eating a vegetable-based diet. "Moderate meat consumption, and stay away from the processed fats," she said. "And stay tuned."